


Outro

by 0fsilver



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Body Horror, Delusions, Hallucinations, M/M, Not Beta Read, Post Rvb13, Short, lolix, non specific descriptions of mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 23:26:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5804380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0fsilver/pseuds/0fsilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regret is a complicated thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outro

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redqueenequilibrium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redqueenequilibrium/gifts).



He’s too drunk for this shit…

Knees feel like fishbowls, head is a shaken box of broken parts all scrambling for a purpose. Hand him a gun and Locus is likely to drop it from jello filled knuckles and eyes that see three times as many rooms as there are.

It’s all quite unbecoming of a mercenary.

The title has a certain weight to it. A way of making politicians sit up straighter, bounty hunters sneer and loose women and men give a short smile. He’s lived this life for too long, no other title fits. Mercenary. A step below prostitute in his book. Someone who sells their destiny for cash. Felix used to think it was a precious title. Thought they were so great in their brutal little way. He enjoyed the life. The movement. Thrilled at dragging Locus by the jaw into the next adventure. Surely the money meant very little to him. It was the adventure. The energy. It was Felix cackling bright and hysterical in his ear as they chased down and defeated death once again. That became their lives, overcoming an inevitable demise once written in their stars.

It was knowing they should be dead, and still trudging on up a hill of skeletons and screams.

Locus seeks out their cot with metal songs empty and echoing from his boots. Stripping down to little more than scars and old pains as he takes the corner. There’s the bottle crooked on his thigh, swollen with aged liquor Felix was saving it for a special day and it chokes him in revenge swallowing more down. Stings. Scalds its way into an empty belly. Nauseous as the world spins around him in pieces. Colors separating from shades. Shadows twisting across the floor until they braid themselves into words Locus could not read. There’s a cold spot burning it’s way beneath his palm where it rests just behind him. The cot big enough for one, used to housing two. It feels too large now. A vast and frosted wasteland of wrinkles and memories. Each whining Locus’ name and greatest fears while the walls bend towards him. Clawing cold hands digging at his thoughts.

 

He takes another drink and the ice in his veins melt for the moment. Retreating to a vague form of cold in the corners of his eyes.

“I actually despise you.” He speaks. Finally. Feeling the dust which collected on his teeth since last he bothered using his mouth. The emptiness muted to a sharp snap back at him. “Shut up.”

It took him little time to escape Chorus. The world like a room suddenly flooded with light to chase the monsters out. The planet screaming to life all at once.

“Oh c'mon. I’m not that bad.” Felix sighs, falling against Locus’ side. Letting hands rest just outside of touch, denying Locus the pads of warmth usually associated with his partner’s nearness. “I’m actually a fucking delight.”

“You’ve ruined, everything.”

“God you’re so melodramatic.” Says the most dramatic person Locus knows. Who spins the length of his hair on a broken finger and rolls one of two eyes. “Relax. It was a job. We just didn’t do it well enough.”

“Shut your mouth.” Locus’ grip on the bottle increases, a small wonder if he could break the thick glass by will alone. He feels exhausted and all at once powerful. Fury guiding him through a dark moment. Felix just makes a noise in the back of his throat, a clear sign he feels no compassion for Locus’ agony. “I loved you so much.”

“Ah baby,” Felix moves to touch, but falls short. His hand in broken pieces at Locus’ brow. Blood drips but doesn’t stain. Dissipates before reaching the bed cover. “You know I loved you too.”

The bottle drops and shatters to the floor. Steel letting out a cry in competition with the shriek of glass. The sounds swarm him like a thousand cries. A brutal symphony of pain clouding his ears. He wants to block out the noise, stifle the heart breaking outcry with palms secure over his ears. Protect himself from this pain- but he wont. He already shunned the sound of Felix’s body breaking. What right does he have to ignore this?

If he looks at Felix now, he can see bone. Brittle, injured pieces jutting out from skin. His hair wet and thick with blood, right cheek bent inwards as his arm shouldn’t be able to move at such an angle. He’s a mutilated ghost. Fractured bits hanging by tendons and weeping marrow. A fistful of glass in a bloodied fist. Locus’ hands wet with the crime.

“Do you feel better now? At least?” Felix asked. Caring. Unlike him really unless it suited his goals. In a way Locus knew it was a trap. A trick question offered by the most venom tipped tongue in the galaxy. But hell did he want to answer. Needed to, really.

“No.” Letting Felix died did little. Leaving him, rejecting him to the grave only brought about a single thought. A solitary realization Locus was not ready to face. “Because I’m not better without you.”

“Little late for that sweet'ums.”

“I know.” What remains of the liquor soaks his feet and stuns him. It feels too cold. Like walking across an endless lake of ice with no shore in sight. “I hate it.”

There’s nothing Locus wants more than to push his brow to Felix’s palm. Imagines it. Recalls the warmth which could linger there. The scar across his thumb from a locked grenade. The three mechanical fingers expertly hidden beneath grafts of synthetic perfectly matched to Felix’s tone. His fingerprinted wiped away beneath years of building scar and callouses. He wishes he could just, lift his chin and meet that texture. The weight of Felix’s hand once again bringing him a sense of calm. Setting still the wild thoughts swimming through his mind like the old days.

It’s been months since Felix died. His chin is left unshaven, his clothes are a foul mess which reek of blood and sweat. The ship might as well carry garbage for the mess Locus has left. Filth piling in the corners, cluttering the walk ways and his skin. It was so easy to forget how crucial Felix was to keeping him going, that when he ran: Locus believed that momentum might carry him through.

“ Regret is a complicated thing.” Felix shushes and if he were real Locus knows he would pinch his lip. Make him smile, or at least attempt. “We tried to shed ourselves of that particular nuisance before, didn’t we?”

“We killed people. So many people.”

“Eh,” A ragged noise, perfectly Felix. He didn’t value human life-he only sought to maintain his own. And Locus. “We fanned the flames of war and you’re more upset about that than the people you’ve literally snapped the necks of.”

“Guilty people.”

“Not all of them hun.” Felix purrs and Locus remembers the vibration on his neck. The terrible way Felix could wind him up or untie him with a word. “Do you really think letting me die is going to redeem you somehow? I only ever did what was best for us.”

“Stop.” Locus would threaten, but what use is that against a ghost? One that smells like crushed copper, cold nights and that cologne Felix wore on special occasions. “That’s not true.”

“Course it is.” He can almost feel Felix from months ago, raking fingers through his hair. Drawing nails like a comb across his scalp to ease him in sleep. It worked every time. “Baby, I’m a hallucination. If you didn’t know it, I couldn’t say it.”

Locus’ feet are wet when he pulls them upward. Alcohol, a sharp and pungent smell, ignored as he shuffles beneath the covers. Felix’s ghost moves near. Lays before him and drips gore onto the sheet, tries to smile and his smashed jaw creaks from the effort. They remain like this for the moment. Staring into one another. Waiting for something, a sign perhaps that this nightmare might end soon. Locus wondering if perhaps he too is dead? Maybe he never made it off that platform? Maybe the simulation soldiers cut him down before he was able to make his escape and his is hell.

This is hell. Yes. That’s about right.

When he offers his hand to Felix there is nothing. No weight or warmth. His fingers slip past the mutilated hand and onto his cot mattress. Nothing. Not even a shiver of resistance to somehow convince him this might be less than an illusion.

“I’m not going to be here when you wake up.”

“I understand.” Answers in pain and wishes he could have held Felix one more time. Grasped his wrist so tightly Felix’s pulse would skitter against his fingertips. Bringtheir brows together in a silent prayer to a god neither of them cared for. He wished he could feel the man’s voice against his spine, the brilliant smile and hateful laugh combining to create a creature so unique no other nightmare could truly replace him.

“You need to take better care of yourself Lo.”

Felix leans into the bed which does not bow or wrinkle at any weight. No disturbance either in Locus’ hair when a muted kiss is pressed to his cheek. There is nothing left but mourning. A lifetime of mistakes made—guilt and agony all knitted into a tight wound inside his mind. Chorus was an error. A terrible miscalculation of himself and his partner. Though he does not regret it more than the monster laying in nightmare before his eyes.

“I think you were a mistake.” His words bring Felix a smile. Bittersweet, crooked and Locus could imagine how his laugh might have felt across a cheek.

“So long as I was the greatest.”   
 

—–


End file.
